


sanctuary

by coffeesuperhero



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 12:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1070688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesuperhero/pseuds/coffeesuperhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief cessation of hostilities between warring parties. Post-TDW.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sanctuary

**Author's Note:**

> THIS HAS LOTS OF SPOILERS FOR THOR 2. 
> 
> [Lexie](http://artbylexie.tumblr.com) draws [awesome stuff](http://artbylexie.tumblr.com/post/68911244949/its-completely-thefangirlhoods-fault-that-i-have); sometimes I write things to go with her work.

When the cry goes up that they have all been deceived once more, that there has been a traitor on their throne, Sif knows where she will find him. She knows, because they have shared the existence of that place for centuries, a secret all their own: a glade tucked into the mountains east of the city, surrounded on all sides by rock with a thick gnarled canopy of tree limbs for a ceiling, inaccessible but for a hidden path through the mountains carved out by an underground stream. They had found it together as children and immediately claimed it as their own quiet sanctuary, far from the noise and distraction of the city, of the palace, of their peers. There, for a time, they were young with lighter hearts; there, they grew together like the branches of the trees over their heads. Even after the worst of his betrayals, she will not reward all his miserable treachery by sharing this secret with others. It is theirs, or it is no one's.

"He will have fled to another realm, no doubt," she says, when they ask her. "He will not stay here to await imprisonment or death."

It is what they want to hear: no one wants a traitor with a silver tongue skulking about the streets of Asgard, cloaked in magic and waiting to strike. Their people need the comfort of thinking that Loki is elsewhere, so she lies. She lies for Asgard, and she wonders as the words fall from her lips if this is how it starts, if it is really so very easy to justify dishonesty as something born of selfless devotion instead of selfish desire, for the truth of the matter is that she wants to take him herself. But before she drags him back to the dungeons she has words for him, and all of them to be spoken through her fists. She will not kill him, for she would not do such a harm to Thor, but that is the only mercy she will give him, the only mercy he deserves.

So while scouts fly to other realms to seek Loki out and bring him to justice, the Lady Sif is not among them; with her shield and sword at her back, she slips away into the mountains instead. The path is hidden but familiar, and her feet never falter, her steps sure and strong though the rocks are as slippery as the man she seeks. After he fell the first time, she forsook the banquets and the company of her friends for an evening to come here, one single light in the darkness rising up from her hands, not for a fallen traitor, but for the moribund memory of a dream she lived in this place, too long ago. 

"I was beginning to think you had forgotten the way," he calls, when she finally steps out of the long dark tunnel into the scattered light that drifts down into the glade.

" _I_ am not the one who has forgotten," she returns, drawing her sword.

He laughs, though he draws no weapons, yet from his stance, deceptively relaxed, she knows he expects her to have come for a fight. Truly, she expects to have come for the same, one hand a fist of rage at her side while the other wraps around the grip of her sword, the sharpness of the blade slicing the very air as she stalks toward him until she stands only a dagger's length away. Her breath comes in hard angry gasps and her sword hand trembles not with fear but with _rage_ , and she knows he does not mistake it, for he knows it all too well. She has been at least as full of ire as he, though the cosmos has seen far too much of his brand of rage of late and none at all of her own. He will see it now, at least; she has saved it all for him, storing up all the tears she would not shed over his death until they turned into bitter anger and regret.

They have always been too much the same.

"You know why I've come," she says, a promise and a challenge.

"I do," he answers, one hand tracing the still air around the point of her sword.

As she stands and watches the movement of his fingers, the leaves of the trees rustling over their heads, something shifts underneath her anger. Relief that he is yet living seeps up through the cracks of hate in her heart; with overwhelming swiftness it surges up from her gut to snatch at her breath and prick at her eyes. This place seems made not of rocks and trees but of memories, remembrances of days untouched by the shadows in their hearts. They have never brought conflict here; it is a haven unsullied by the chill of bitterness or the flame of rage, and she realizes now that would have it remain so inviolate, an island of unchanging peace.

She will not fight with him, not here, not even to assuage the endless rage she feels. She lowers her sword; he takes his hand away. When their eyes meet, they nod in a silent mutual understanding not to breach the sanctity of this place. Her sword falls from her hand as she reaches for him and he reaches back, her hand warming his cold cheek and his fingers gripping her hair like it is all that tethers him to life.

The fight will wait.


End file.
